I got caught up in the end of the backlog and it took me over 3 months to get my UK passport. In some cases it was taking up to 5 months to apply for a new passport and 3-4 months for a renewal. A lot of people ended up having to cancel their trips.

The reason for the delay is that the UK moved all of their passport issuing to IPS in the UK, with the migration starting in 2010. Before 2010 renewals and applications (such as mine) would have been processed and issued by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (e.g. the embassy or consulate in certain countries) if the applicant lived outside of the UK. The change in issuing authority caused a huge backlog for the IPS.

The IPS finally seems to have caught up, so perhaps they're advising people that it's safe to start applying again.

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